Floating Castles

 

While I'm heading off in an Age of Sail and Pre-dreadnought direction for my naval games at the moment, I've also been giving some serious thought to my 1/2400th scale French, British and American ironclad fleets, which are now gathering dust rather than being actively deployed. These have been used for many fleet-level games and also smaller naval actions using Broadside and Ram but I've never been entirely happy with the level of detail in the rules, despite being excellent for fast play and solo wargaming. The alternative is to use a more in-depth, fast play set like Dahlgren and Columbiad or the more involved Iron and Fire, both of which I've played before quite a lot, but they are more suitable for smaller engagements and larger scales, with an obvious leaning toward the American Civil War. 

So, to cut a long ramble short, I'm going to have another look at the old HLBS ironclad rules written by Chris Peers, which were originally an article in Wargames Illustrated many years ago but were published as a full set of rules under the title of Floating Castles. I like Chris Peers' rules, even though they are a bit quirky and lack some clarity including no index or QRS for starters, but these ones are designed for fast play, fleet-level games which is what I'm aiming for. I wrote an 'out of the box' review a few years ago, so you can judge for yourself:

http://jimswargamesworkbench.blogspot.com/2010/07/hlbs-floating-castles-rules-review.html

I'll dig them out when I get back home, see if I can navigate my way through them and possibly even attempt to work up a QRS. The only thing that niggles is the gunnery system, which involves a D10 roll for each gun in a battery, so a bucket full of dice will be essential equipment. Otherwise, I think they may be the answer to my problem...?